Tag: elections

Nearly $500 million continues to sit in a bloated, unused government fund

As Americans rush to file their taxes by this year’s April 18 deadline, a sliver of them — less than 4 percent, if recent history holds — will check a little box that directs $3 to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund.

But that’s still millions of $3 contributions, year after year. And they’ve caused the Presidential Election Campaign Fund — a once-popular resource for White House aspirants that hasn’t been used regularly in 15 years — to swell past $430 million in value as of February 28, according to U.S. Treasury records reviewed by Raw Story.

With the untapped fund likely to continue growing after Tax Day en route to half a billion dollars, politicians and nonprofits have ideas for how to reform the nation’s obsolete public campaign financing policies and reallocate this resource at a time when, according to the Treasury, the country is facing more than a $1 trillion dollar deficit.

Among them is Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), who told Raw Story the money could be used to help close the nation’s budget gap.

“It’s just sitting there … This is just a small effort on many other efforts that we have in trying to tackle this budget,” Ernst said. “You’ve just got to get out there and raise money if you’re gonna play, so why do we do this?”

Nonprofits could benefit from the money that’s sitting in the fund, said Rick Cohen, chief communications officer and chief operating officer for the National Council of Nonprofits. While the Council is focusing much of its tax policy efforts on getting the universal charitable deduction back after it expired in 2021, the hundreds of millions of dollars in the Presidential Election Campaign Fund could help numerous charities.

“Every dollar can make a big difference for people who rely on nonprofits,” Cohen said. “It may seem like a small amount when it comes to the government’s budget, but 90% of the sector has less than a $1 million budget every year. You could double the budget of 500 nonprofit organizations and still have more to go around.”

Cohen said it would be great to see a tax form checkoff box for donating to charities like Colorado has that allows taxpayers to donate their return to nonprofits.

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Air Force Confirms Military Records of Two More GOP Candidates Were Leaked to Democratic Firm

The U.S. Air Force has admitted that it improperly released the military records of a further two GOP candidates to a Democratic-aligned research firm in an issue that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said is “not going to go away quietly.”

In a letter last Friday obtained by Politico, the Air Force informed House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-AL) and Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) that an internal audit confirmed nine people’s records were “released without authority” to the Due Diligence Group between 2021 and 2023.

“During the two-year period covered by the timeline in your letter, AFPC received a total of 19,597 requests for records,” the letter read. “AFPC also initiated a separate audit of all third-party requests received between early 2021 and early 2023. That audit identified a total of 11 individuals who had their military records released without proper authority.”

According to the letter, seven of the disclosed records affected GOP candidates running for office in 2022. Among them, five had already been made public, while a further two have just been confirmed. The first is J.R. Majewski, an Ohio candidate who faced campaign-trail scrutiny for embellishing part of his military record. The other is Robert “Eli” Bremer, who lost in last year’s GOP primary race to take on Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO).

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New Mexico Soros-Backed Secretary of State, Maggie Toulouse-Oliver, Used Illegal Software to Combine Election Results and Tried to Cover It Up, Breaking Several State and Local Laws in the Process

As the Democrat-controlled New Mexico legislature barrels ahead with legislation that would put the nail in the coffin of honesty and transparency in New Mexico’s elections, the corruption of the Secretary of State (SOS), Maggie Toulouse Oliver, continues to be exposed.

After hearing public testimony during a November Torrance County public meeting, the Estancia News has done a deep dive on how election results in New Mexico are finalized, or “canvassed.”  It turns out the SOS has illegally centralized this process, cutting out the clerks, and breaking multiple state and federal laws in the process.

This series of articles will outline the framework put in place by Toulouse-Oliver and corrupt Senator Daniel Ivey-Soto that could be the mechanism used to illegally undermine elections in New Mexico.

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Why Is Election Denier Stacey Abrams Overseeing Elections In Nigeria?

It’s an odd case of juxtaposition.  A politician well known for refusing to accept election outcomes based on dubious claims is now helping to oversee the “integrity” of elections in an unstable foreign nation like Nigeria.  

Democrat and failed Georgia governor candidate Stacey Abrams is famous for her hypocrisy when it comes to accusations of election rigging while attacking conservative candidates for also questioning elections.  Abrams refused to concede to Republican Brian Kemp after the Georgia election results of 2018, claiming that the election was stolen due to voter oppression tied to discrimination.  She specifically targeted rules restricting some mail in ballots and absentee ballots.  Federal courts ruled that there were no grounds for her accusations.

Abrams has long been an avid defender of absentee ballot harvesting tactics and claims rules against the practice are “race related.”  The methodology of ballot harvesting has long been a boon for Democrats in the US as a means to secure election wins through absentee votes, which are collected by political operatives from people’s homes and then delivered to polling places.  Suspicions over ballot harvesting and the potential for vote rigging within the chain of custody have been the cause of numerous election conflicts, including conflicts over the 2020 presidential election.

The former governor’s candidate is also known for her aggressive opposition to voter ID laws designed to prevent non-citizens from casting in US elections.

Abrams is, strangely, now in Nigeria, joining the National Democratic Institute (along with the National Republican Institute) on a mission to observe elections and encourage voter participation.  The diplomatic initiative includes a contingent of globalist think-tank representatives from institutions like the Atlantic Council and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, which is heavily involved in diversity and equity programs similar to ESG efforts.

The NDI/NRI are focused on convincing younger voters to appear at polling stations, which seems to be a fair mission.  However, with widespread delays and attacks on some polling stations, there are questions of corruption and foreign interference.  The groups involved in the effort are predominantly concerned with the spread of globalist policies.  

Why Stacey Abrams and why Nigeria? It’s hard to say, but one of the major candidates for President of Nigeria is Bola Tinubu, a member of the socialist All Progressives Congress party, and Tinubu has some ties to Barack Obama, just as Abrams is a close associate of Barack Obama.  While Joe Biden’s interest in Tinubu is less certain, his former boss and the Democrat Party asked the Nigerian socialist to attend the Democratic National Convention in 2012, allegedly offering him a “gold card invitation”.  The circumstances surrounding the level of favor garnered by Tinubu’s DNC invitation are debated.    

The leftist oriented Woodrow Wilson Center, which as noted is part of the NDI election oversight operation in Nigeria, has also taken a special interest in Tinubu, inviting him to speak in 2014 on the value of the Opposition Parties in “progressing” Nigeria. 

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Chicago inmates claim jail guards are pressuring them to illegally vote in the mayoral election

Chicago inmates have claimed they are being pressured to illegally vote in the city’s mayoral election.

The inmates, some who are accused of murder, argued guards at Cook County Jail were pushing them to vote – despite some being registered in a different jurisdiction.

They claimed the guards were receiving orders from higher up and were ‘just doing what I’m told’ when confronted over the move.

It comes amid fears of ballot harvesting as insiders claimed the jail was the ‘ideal environment’ due to no cameras or election observers.

It also raised concerns it could propel Lori Lightfoot back into office, despite her languishing on just 13 percent in the polls.

One inmate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told DailyMail.com the guards didn’t seem to care that they might be breaking the law.

He said: ‘I asked him [the guard], ‘Did you ask people first if they’re registered to vote?’ And he said ‘no’.

‘I said but you should because if I’m registered to vote somewhere else like I am, you are asking me and enticing me to vote even though I’m registered somewhere else and that’s a felony. I can’t be voting in two different jurisdictions.’

He claims another guard told him that he was ‘just doing what I’m told’. 

An inmate being held on murder charges, also says 21 of the 48 inmates in his Division 11, have already voted but none were asked if they were registered or eligible to vote. 

‘They just say who wants to vote? Line up to vote,’ he said.

An unnamed source familiar with Cook County Jail said it is the ideal environment for ballot harvesting.

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Rhode Island Bill Would Make It Possible For Illegal Immigrants To Vote

A new bill making its way through the system in Rhode Island would make it possible for non-citizens to vote in municipal elections.

Another New England state, Vermont, is currently trying to do the same thing.

When you look at these policy proposals, the situation at the southern border starts to make more sense. Democrats seem to be trying to outnumber the people who would vote against them.

The Federalist reports:

Rhode Island Bill Would Open Elections To Illegal Aliens, In Democrats’ Latest Push For Noncitizen Voting

Democrats in the Rhode Island General Assembly have introduced legislation that, if passed, would grant localities the ability to give non-U.S. citizens the right to vote in municipal elections. The measure marks the latest attempt by leftists to give foreigners and, in this case, even illegal immigrants the opportunity to influence the U.S. electoral process.

Under the new bill (H 5461), cities and towns would be permitted to “allow all residents of the municipality to vote in municipal elections for municipal officeholders regardless of the immigration status of the residents.”

The measure also stipulates that the locality’s board of canvassers is required to coordinate with Rhode Island’s secretary of state and board of elections to “develop the forms and instructions to implement the provisions” of the new law, “as well as any rules and regulations necessary to ensure that any ballot for municipal officeholders only is kept separate and apart from ballots distributed to [citizen] voters … and counted separately for transmission to the board of elections.”

The legislation does not specify what constitutes proof of residency.

Allowing non-citizens to vote in municipal elections will just be the first step, the test run.

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Feds Adapting A.I. Used to Track ISIS to Combat American Dissent on Vaccines, Elections

The government’s campaign to fight “misinformation” has expanded to adapt military-grade artificial intelligence once used to silence the Islamic State (ISIS) to quickly identify and censor American dissent on issues like vaccine safety and election integrity, according to grant documents and cyber experts.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded several million dollars in grants recently to universities and private firms to develop tools eerily similar to those developed in 2011 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in its Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program.

DARPA said those tools were used “to help identify misinformation or deception campaigns and counter them with truthful information,” beginning with the Arab Spring uprisings in the the Middle East that spawned ISIS over a decade ago.

The initial idea was to track dissidents who were interested in toppling U.S.-friendly regimes or to follow any potentially radical threats by examining political posts on Big Tech platforms.

DARPA set four specific goals for the program:

  1. Detect, classify, measure and track the (a) formation, development and spread of ideas and concepts (memes), and (b) purposeful or deceptive messaging and misinformation.
  2. Recognize persuasion campaign structures and influence operations across social media sites and communities.
  3. Identify participants and intent, and measure effects of persuasion campaigns.
  4. Counter messaging of detected adversary influence operations.

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Meta Global Affairs Pres: We’re Not ‘Truth Police,’ But We’ll Restrict Trump’s Account if He Casts Doubt on Elections

During a portion of an interview with NBC News Senior Washington Correspondent Hallie Jackson released on Thursday, Meta President for Global Affairs Nick Clegg stated that if former President Donald Trump uses “Facebook and Instagram to cast doubt on and delegitimize the upcoming election,” they will limit the reach of his posts and possibly could keep his posts from being reshared and restrict his ability to run political ads on the platforms, but maintained Meta is not the “truth police, never have been, and we’ll never seek to be.”

Clegg stated, “[I]f he kind of sails…close to the wind and tries to use Facebook and Instagram to cast doubt on and delegitimize the upcoming election, we’ll also take measures like letting him post, but not necessarily having that post appear in people’s feeds, possibly removing the reshare button so people can’t reshare his posts, and if he keeps doing that, possibly also restricting his ability to run political ads on Facebook and Instagram.”

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After Approving Mass Mail-In Balloting, California Loses 10 Million Ballots In November Midterms

The 2022 midterms were the first major elections to occur in California after the Golden State approved all-mail voting in September 2021. Under the new system, all registered voters in the state are automatically mailed a ballot for each election cycle (Californians can still opt to vote in person if they wish). But during California’s first foray into mass mail-in balloting for the 2022 midterms, 226,250 mail ballots were rejected and more than 10 million remain unaccounted for, according to a new report by the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

Per the report, the most common reason for rejection of mail ballots in the 2022 cycle was late arrival (48 percent of rejects). Under California law, mail ballots must be postmarked no later than Election Day and arrive at the tabulation center within seven days. For the state’s 2022 general elections, more than 57,000 ballots arrived after Nov. 15 (the seven-day mark). Largely as a result of the switch to mail-in balloting, more than 57,000 Californians were disenfranchised. Such voter disenfranchisement is sure to continue as long as the state keeps its vote-by-mail system. 

“Mail ballots disenfranchise,” PILF President J. Christian Adams said in a statement. “There are many reasons mail ballots fail ultimately to count. No one casting a ballot at home can correct an error before it’s too late. California’s vote-by-mail demonstration should serve as a warning to state legislators elsewhere.”

Another concerning figure coming from California’s midterm election cycle is that 10 million ballots still remain unaccounted for, after processing all polling place votes and rejected ballots. The assumption by election officials is that the majority of these ballots were ignored or thrown out by recipients. But such an information gap increases the risk of fraud. As the report notes, “The public cannot know how many ballots were disregarded, delivered to wrong mailboxes, or even withheld from the proper recipient by someone at the same address.”

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